Hunger is an aspect of Minecraft that governs several aspects of gameplay. Eating food fills up the food bar, which is constantly drained by the player's actions. The food bar is located on the HUD opposite to the player's health bar on the bottom of the screen and is represented by ten drumsticks (), and each are equal to 2 half-units of food.

While the player is sprinting, the food bar depletes much faster. The player is not able to sprint if their food level is 6 () or less.

The food bar does not drain when playing on Peaceful mode. If it somehow gets depleted, such as by allowing it to deplete by switching to another difficulty and back again, it will quickly regenerate. Additionally, the food bar will not drain if the player remains completely stationary.

Certain foods have a chance of inflicting hunger on the player upon consumption, which causes the player's hunger to deplete faster.

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When the food bar is at 20 ( × 10) or greater and saturation is non-empty, health regenerates at (1 () health point each 1⁄2-second, costing 1 food point (4 units of exhaustion) per point healed.

When the food bar is at 18 ( × 9) points or above, the player's health will slowly regenerate at a rate of 1 () every 4 seconds, costing 1 food point (4 units of exhaustion) per point healed.

When the food bar is at 17 ( × 8.5) points or below, the player will not naturally regenerate health unless switching to Peaceful difficulty.

If the food bar is at 6 () points or below, then the player will not be able to sprint.

When the food bar is at 0 (), the player's health will deplete at a rate of 1 () every 4 seconds (this makes sleeping impossible). On Easy difficulty, the player's health stops dropping at 10 (), on normal it stops at 1 (), and on hard it keeps draining until either the player eats something or starves to death.[1]

Hunger, or food poisoning, is an effect induced by eating certain foods, which turns the food bar a sickly yellow-green and drains food more rapidly. The only foods, however, to inflict Hunger are rotten flesh, which can cause Hunger 80% of the time, raw Chicken, which causes Hunger only 30% of the time and Pufferfish, which will always cause Hunger (as well as Nausea and Poison). Eating a spider eye or poisonous potato actually deals the player Poison. The rest of the foods will not cause food poisoning.

Hunger from food poisoning adds 15.0 to the player's exhaustion level over the course of 30 seconds, draining × 1⅞. In Peaceful mode, the food bar will change color, but will not drain out. Greenish swirls will also emit from the player, indicating that the player has food poisoning. When a pufferfish is eaten, it induces level III Hunger, but only for 15 seconds. In this time, 22.5 exhaustion points are added, draining × 2 13⁄16.

The duration of Hunger does not stack. So, if the player eats many poisonous foods at once, they will only feel the negative effects of the most recent poisonous food, plus the consumption time of each other food. Also, drinking milk will negate the effect, allowing the player to potentially eat more poisonous food and constantly drink milk to fill the bar without being inflicted by Hunger.

The ten drumsticks shown at the bottom of the screen next to the health bar show the status of the player's food level. Each drumstick represents two food level points. Therefore, the maximum food level is 20.

There is another aspect of hunger that is not visible to the player. This is called the food saturation level. The player's hunger will not decrease until their food saturation level reaches zero. When the saturation level is at zero, the food bar will shake or jitter periodically. The maximum value of the food saturation level is equal to the current value of your food level. This means that if, for example, your food level is 20/20 (All your drumsticks are full) then your maximum food saturation level is also 20.

When you eat food, your food level and your food saturation level increase as long as they aren't already full. The amount that is replenished depends on the food item being consumed. The amount of food saturation replenished is not dependent on the number of food level points replenished; for instance, if the player eats a steak while missing only half a drumstick (food level 19/20), that player will still gain the full food saturation of the steak (up to saturation 20/20), despite having wasted all but one of the actual food points from the steak. It is not possible to eat food when your food level is at its maximum (except for golden apples and chorus fruit).

A third component of hunger is the food exhaustion level, which effectively tracks fractions of the next hunger or saturation point that will be spent. Whenever exhaustion reaches 4.0 or above, it is reduced by 4.0 and the player loses 1 point of saturation level; if the saturation level is already at zero, then the player loses 1 ().

The last variable involved in the hunger mechanics is the foodTickTimer, which is used to time health regeneration or starvation.

↑Food Points + Saturation, which gives roughly how 'long' the food will last. See hunger for details. This value will be reduced if you are near your food or saturation caps, as excess points of either type will be wasted.

↑ abcAverage expected food quality if food poisoning isn't cured. Food poisoning lasts 30 seconds from the last food that inflicted it, and drains nearly 2 shanks of hunger over that duration. The loss comes from saturation before visible hunger.

Exhaustion rates decreased across the board: Swimming decreased from 0.015/m to 0.01/m, breaking a block decreased from 0.025/block to 0.005/block, jumping decreased from 0.2/jump to 0.05/jump, sprint jumping decreased from 0.8/jump to 0.2/jump, attacking and taking damage both decreased from 0.3/attack to 0.1/attack, Hunger status effect decreased from 0.5/s to 0.1/s

Exhaustion rate from regeneration is increased from 0.4/half-heart to 0.6/half-heart.

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